The Most Creative Way Someone's Asked What Gender I Am (Feat. Attempting to Flirt With Me Simultaneously)

7:39 p.m.

Last night after my Starbucks shift, when walking to my car, I was approached by two middle-aged men who had been sitting on the curb. Like every man who sees me next to my car, they complimented me heavily on it and tried to engage in Car Discourse with me. Being a polite person, I engaged them politely; this turned out to be a mistake, because they trapped me in conversation for the next twenty minutes.

Believe me: after the first mention of his 4Runner, the talkative one of the pair had already run out the clock of worthwhile things to say, and I had already walked over to my open car door for the making of a quick getaway. Despite my periodic excuses, he kept extending the interaction, and proceeded to:

• offer me a cigarette
• explain mumblingly, after I said, "no, thank you, I don't smoke," that he doesn't really smoke either and that he only does it "around family"
• high five me after a quip and attempt to wrap his fingers around my hand on the way down (*shudder*)
• ask where I live and where I go to school
• ask me if I work at this Starbucks, after mentioning that he doesn't go there often
• invite me to a club downtown to smoke hooka, play pool, and hang out with his friends
• mansplain Italian grammar to me in order to
• "introduce" me to the difference between bello and bella
• and ask me: "which one are you?"

"Are you asking me?"

"Yeah, you know, bello for a guy and bella for a girl, so which one are you?"

"You don't know?"

This had been after twenty minutes of conversation. No apron covering my torso, no checkout line to cut the speculating short. I had been standing, facing the two of them, the entire time, not bothering to attempt to "pass" as a cis version of anything. That entire time and he was still trying to figure the damn thing out.

There was an awkward moment of silence as I dreaded having to come out to these randos. Usually, people just silently pick a gender for me to smooth things out in their brains, which is good because I hate having to explain myself to people who've never met a Thing 3 before.

"Neither."

"No, but bello or bella?" Mans just wasn't getting it.

"bell-e."

Poor chump was perplexed behind that annoying, polite smile of his. I think he said something like, "aaahhh!" and pretended to think I was being cheeky or something. And then there was somehow an extra two minutes of me trying to tell the two of them, for the third time, that I had to get home and feed my cat (which was true, for fuck's sake. It was also past my damn bedtime).

I didn't really think about how creeped out I felt after that interaction, or the implications to that guy's sexuality, until I saw the two fuckers at work the next goddamn day. So now I have two things: a story to tell (done ✓) and a brand-new worry of being stalked and hit on at work again. Whoopee!

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